The grit she showed early, growing up in an impoverished town in Mexico's Guerrero state where education ended with elementary school. As a young adult she committed herself to traveling four hours each way to attend and graduate from the nearest high school.

The skills and savvy she developed in Houston — selling Mary Kay Cosmetics from her home; doing up to 30 facials a week; making piñatas and crafts for children's events; completing an English-language course at her eldest son's school and taking a computer class at a local community center.

Now, after a final, inspiring nudge from the folks at the recently opened Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center in Gulfton, Galindo is a full-fledged member of the city's small-business community.

"Every person, they have creativity," she said on a recent sunny morning. "But they don't always have the opportunity to express that."

Galindo was referring to the women, mostly moms, who take the craft classes she teaches at Baker-Ripley and sell their wares through her fledgling company, KRD Piñatas.

But she could've been talking about any number of people who call Gulfton home.

Overcoming problems

Even in a city as diverse as this one, the Gulfton neighborhood in southwest Houston stands out. Largely Hispanic, it's home to natives of 83 countries who speak 16 languages. It's crowded on a scale seen in only a few American cities.

With 16,000 residents per square mile — compared with 3,800 inside Loop 610 — Gulfton is the most densely packed neighborhood in Texas, said Angela Blanchard, president and chief executive of Neighborhood Centers Inc.

Blanchard's organization, a 103-year-old public-private enterprise that funds an array of social services across the region, has had a presence in Gulfton for more than three decades, operating Head Start and Early Head Start programs for children.

But about eight years ago, the residents began asking for more. They'd seen Ripley House in the East End and the four others around the region run by Neighborhood Centers. They wanted a place of their own, a single source for a variety of services.

They found an eager partner.

"Gulfton had been this blinking red light on everybody's radar," Blanchard said.

But instead of dwelling on the community's problems — from crime to obesity to citizenship issues — Neighborhood Centers focused on its aspirations. Blanchard said the goal wasn't to "fix" anything, but to help the residents flourish on their own.

If people were losing money to payday lenders, cash-checking services and income-tax preparers, they would start a credit union and teach people that it's OK to trust a bank. They would train an army of volunteers to do tax work for free.

If parents wanted an alternative to the local schools, they'd round up teachers and give them a clean and comfortable space stocked with computers and a library.

If stay-at-home moms wanted to sell crafts out of their homes, they would find someone like Galindo to teach them how.

"We see Houston as still the place of opportunity," Blanchard said, "no matter where you come from or what rung of the ladder you're on."

The result was Baker-Ripley, an ambitious $25 million complex that includes a school, credit union, health clinic, meeting hall and a space for artists.

Susan Baker, the wife of former Secretary of State James Baker, led the fundraising, but hundreds of Gulfton and Sharpstown residents, local business owners and other interested parties were consulted on matters inside and out, down to the paint colors and style of bricks.

Five buildings on 4 acres

The Baker-Ripley campus makes a lively first impression on a busy side-street off Hillcroft, across from two of the area's ubiquitous and sprawling apartment complexes. With five buildings on four acres, it is colorful and modern by design, both inviting to families, with its landscaped outdoor areas and playground, and professional-looking for those with serious business.

"Everything we do here is about becoming self-sufficient," said Claudia Vasquez, Neighborhood Centers' vice president of community-based initiatives. "And financial self-sufficiency is probably the most critical ingredient for families."

Thus, two years before Baker-Ripley's Sept. 25 grand opening, Randy Martinez was out signing up customers in select ZIP codes for the new Promise Credit Union. Many had come from unstable countries and had to be convinced their money would be safe.

Promise now has more than 1,500 members with combined assets of $1.5 million. Visitors to the credit union office might find themselves in line behind elementary students making deposits of their own.

Principal Eduardo Sindaco encourages the kids to start saving in kindergarten, with a goal of having $1,000 by the end of fifth grade. He explained that college is more than an abstract notion when you have money to pay for it.

So far, 95 percent of Sindaco's students have a savings account.

The credit union shares space with a tax center, where residents can have their income taxes done for free by trained volunteers. It's one of 17 run by Neighborhood Centers and the only one open year-round. It, too, has shown progress.

Six years ago, Elizabeth Colvin, a labor and employment lawyer by training, started a program in Austin to provide free tax preparation for low- income workers. She built it up and then was hired two years ago to expand the patchwork system in Houston.

"Houston was a completely untapped market," Colvin said. About 7,000 people were taking advantage of the service.

During her first January-April tax season, in 2009, volunteers prepared 16,000 returns across the city and another 2,000 after that. This year, the number rose to 22,000 during tax season and 3,000 since then. Fourteen percent of those helped had not filed taxes the previous year, she said. Net returns during the two-year period were $55 million.

To get a sense of the community impact, multiply those participation numbers by what a for-profit tax preparer might charge. In a neighborhood like Gulfton, where the average household income is $20,000, those are meaningful savings.

"We're really seeing the families who need every penny of these refunds," Colvin said.

High expectations

Time and again, the folks at Neighborhood Centers talk about opportunity. So, too, does Candelaria Galindo, the piñata-maker.

She moved to Gulfton five months ago with her husband, a supermarket butcher, and their three teenage children. She went to Baker-Ripley to enroll her son in an after-school program and mentioned her craft-making skills.

Soon, the staff had her teaching piñata-making, floral design and event-planning at the center, first as a volunteer and then on a paid contract basis. Each class attracts seven to 10 women per week.

One morning last week, she drove over to pick up the students' final projects. She'll take them, and her own work, and sell them at flea markets and, soon, through a local grocery chain. The two weeks before Christmas are good ones for piñata sales, she said, and hers will fetch $15 or $24 apiece.

Galindo recently got a permit from the city to work out of her home, and she has high expectations for her business.

She's known tough times — "When the life is hard is when I learn so much," as she puts it — and she knows how to find the possibilities in others. Take the women in her classes, for example.

"I see them and they are very creative," Galindo said. "They have different talents. They have everything."